


Make me any summer's story tell

by Sharpiefan



Series: The Shakespeare Series [9]
Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 07:57:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11869962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharpiefan/pseuds/Sharpiefan
Summary: August 1799. Robbie is distracted from his schoolwork by a request.Short bit of random fluff





	Make me any summer's story tell

_SONNET 98_

_From you have I been absent in the spring,_  
_When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim_  
_Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,_  
_That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him._  
_Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell_  
_Of different flowers in odour and in hue_  
_Could make me any summer's story tell,_  
_Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;_  
_Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,_  
_Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;_  
_They were but sweet, but figures of delight,_  
_Drawn after you, you pattern of all those._  
_Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,_  
_As with your shadow I with these did play._

 

**Rotherham Park, late July 1799**

 

It was afternoon in mid-August and the family were all together in the summer sitting room, apart from Viola who could be heard practising Mozart in the music room thanks to the open door. Lord Rotherham and his eldest son were playing chess, Lady Rotherham was making the most of the afternoon light for some complicated piece of embroidery, and their younger son and his friend were seated across the table from each other, working on a particularly difficult Latin extract they had been given to complete over the holidays.

 

“Robbie?”

 

The person addressed, a young man of seventeen, turned in his chair to regard the speaker, a child of six years old, who was standing beside his chair and looking up at him from large dark eyes.

 

“Yes?”

 

The Countess looked up from her sewing. “Olivia! Do not interrupt your brother; he is doing his school-work.”

 

Robbie smiled at their mother who was seated on a sofa across the room. “It is no bother, Ma'am, honestly.”

 

He wiped his pen nib clean and capped the inkwell before turning to lift his sister onto his lap. She immediately wrapped her arms around him and burrowed her head into the folds of the silk neckcloth around his neck.

 

“Robert, you are supposed to be doing your holiday tasks,” the Countess admonished him, though her tone was as mild as ever.

 

“Mother, I have been trying to parse one sentence for ten minutes with little success,” Robbie replied, and breathed in the apple-blossom scent of his baby sister's hair. He pushed his Latin to one side and reached for his propelling pencil and a clean sheet of paper. He had the entire rest of summer to come up with a decent translation, anyway.

 

Olivia lifted her head. “Pothooks?” she said doubtfully, looking at the paper.

 

Robbie grinned, though it turned into an innocent look as his friend, sitting on the opposite side of the table and likewise wrestling with Virgil, looked up questioningly.

 

“I am sure we can do better than your pothooks today, Livvy,” he said, putting the pencil into her hand. Wrapping his own hand around hers, he helped her form, in rather large loops and curlicues, her full name.

 

Olivia looked at it before twisting back round to again bury her head in her brother's neck. “Robbie... tell me a story? Please?”

 

The look Sutcliffe gave him was one of incredulity. Robbie merely returned it with an unspoken promise of dire punishment should word of this leak out back at school. He stood, lifting Olivia as he did so, and crossed to a sofa nearer the fireplace. Sitting down, he settled his sister on his lap and began in a quiet voice as she curled against him, “Rufus the squirrel lived with his Mama and Papa in a big old oak tree on a large estate somewhere in the north of England...”

 

 

 


End file.
